CAPITOL HILL: Sometimes it can seem as if one lives on several different planets at the same time while living here in Washington. This afternoon saw three top GOP lawmakers decrying China after it apparently tested (we don’t know if the test was successful) a hypersonic vehicle. This evening, the Navy announced it is beefing up the number of carriers stationed in the Pacific, moving the USS Theodore Roosevelt from its current berth at Norfolk to San Diego.

And the Chief of Naval Operations told the Surface Navy Association’s annual conference late this afternoon that the kerfuffle between the Chinese aircraft carrier’s escorts and the USS Cowpens “quieted down very quickly” once the carrier’s senior captain communicated directly with his colleague on the Cowpens. The CNO cast this as an excellent example of how well-understood protocols could help both sides avoid crises. It’s been previously noted that the captain of the Liaoning visited the Pentagon last September.

But on Capitol Hill, the portrayal of China was not nearly as positive. Three GOP members of the House Armed Services Committee, including chairman Buck McKeon, sounded the alarm.

The Chinese “appear to be leaping ahead of us” with the test of a hypersonic missile, said Reps. McKeon, Randy Forbes and Mike Rogers. “The Asia Pacific is fast becoming a powder keg. Allowing nations that do not share our respect for free and open avenues of commerce to gain a strategic advantage over the United States and her allies only brings us closer to lighting the fuse.”

I spoke with a former senior intelligence official who is familiar with hypersonic technologies to get some idea of the significance of the Chinese test. In military terms, this “isn’t very significant,” if it’s a gliding vehicle powered to hypersonic speed by a rocket, which appears to be the case, the former official said. The truly worrying advance would come if China had demonstrated the ability to fly a powered vehicle at hypersonic speeds that was able to engage in controlled flight. The United States has worked on hypersonic technologies for years, most recently on Boeing’s X-51, which is a scramjet. The X-51 flew faster than Mach 5 (which defines hypersonic) for 210 seconds in May last year (pictured below).

There have been persistent reports that China’s so-called carrier-killer missile, the DF-21, is hypersonic. But it’s more likely a medium-range ballistic missile with an independently-guided warhead that does not fly faster than Mach 5.

Here’s the complex dance of the carriers as chronicled by the Navy News Service: “The U.S. Navy announced today that the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) will replace USS George Washington (CVN 73) in Japan and become part of the U.S. 7th Fleet forward-deployed naval forces (FDNF) in Yokosuka, Japan. As part of the rebalance strategy to increase the Navy’s presence in the Pacific Fleet, USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) will move from Norfolk, Va., to San Diego.

“Theodore Roosevelt will serve as a U.S. 3rd Fleet rotational carrier allowing Ronald Reagan to depart her current homeport in San Diego and proceed to Yokosuka. George Washington will depart Japan and proceed to Virginia in preparation for its mid-life refueling complex overhaul at Newport News Shipbuilding, Huntington Ingalls Industries.”

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Don Bacon

Thanks for the hypersonic info. Perhaps it will calm Buck & friends down.

Republican House Armed Services Committee members Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, Rep. Randy Forbes and Rep. Mike Rogers issued a joint statement Tuesday saying they are concerned in light of hearing about the Chinese test about America’s ability to maintain its technological advantage with the level of budget cuts that Congress has approved.

Regarding the Reagan (CVN-76), I first thought it was to get the radiation-affected sailors out of the country, and into the country where it occurred (Japan), but actually the shift won’t occur for 18 months according to news sources.

bobbymike34

China and the US are in an arms race the problem is China is the only one racing. The US should;
1) Massively increase spending for hypersonic and prompt global strike weaponry
2) Abrogate the INF Treaty and build new intermediate range offensive missiles to match China’s arsenal
3) Complete Triad modernization WITH NO further reductions beyond New Start.

bridgebuilder78

I concur, and to your 1), 2), and 3), I add a 4): massively ramp up borrowing from the Chinese to pay for 1), 2), and 3).

Gary Church

China does not care about anyplace and anything but China and they have always been isolationist; trying to start another cold war with the country we are deep in debt to is ridiculous. They spend so little on defense compared to the U.S. characterizing it as a “race” is really……B.S. I remember right before 911 there were people making the rounds trying to demonize China as our next great enemy. Puh-leez.

bridgebuilder78

Of course they don’t care. Well maybe they do, in a gleeful way: watch the Americans bleed themselves to death fighting a figment of their imagination. Easy peasy…

Commie

We Communists will sell you the rope you hang us with.

bridgebuilder78

The communists certainly botched their rope salesmanship. Or perhaps it was the ‘Russian Soul’ that accounted for the failure?

In any event, the Chinese are simply better capitalists, for it takes an excellent capitalist to know how to hang another capitalist. Competition is good, they say, eh?

Gary Church

“The big thieves hang the little ones.” Czech Proverb

The Capitalists are the other pole of the Communists. The damage the Fascists did to the former USSR made that scheme collapse and now greed is doing in the survivor. Sad that humanity must suffer so much misery because of a relatively few sociopaths and their power over the gullible masses of manipulated distracted consumers. The middle class is dying.

bridgebuilder78

Psssss, but we have ‘freedom’.

ziggy1988

This test was actually significant, for it showed that China has joined the hypersonic weapons game. And it’s just a part of China’s vast arsenal of weapons.

As for carriers, they’re just expensive targets for the Chinese. Get rid of them.

Gary Church

I agree with you on the carriers Z but why do you keep insulting your hosts? Start your own website.

ziggy1988

Actually, the DF-21 IS hypersonic – its top speed is Mach 10 per AsianWeek. Once again, Colin Clark is blathering nonsense about issues he knows ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about.

http://www.breakingdefense.com/ Colin Clark

Depends who you read and who you talk with, my friend.

estuartj

Key here is that you can’t really do both, either the DF-21D has a maneuverable reentry vehicle capable of terminal guinance OR it has a hypersonic unguided warhead. You can’t maneuver a hypersonic vehicle a low atmoshpere, it will tumble and destroy itself.
Thus the PLA must be deciding on using a hypersonic warhead (which could be intert, the velocity will do all the damage you need) or a maneuvering warhead that is more vulnerable to intercept (though being maneuverable it is still hard to hit).

http://www.linkedin.com/in/brianweeden Brian Weeden

But you could maneuver it before it enters the lower atmosphere, or you could just add some aerodynamic glide. That’s all you need to do to disrupt targeting based on a purely ballistic flight trajectory. The latter is what the Russians are doing.

– DF-21D warheads are maneuverable, hypersonic when entering atmosphere and slowing down to high supersonic as it maneuvers. All things that have L/D ratio >0 can be maneuvered by altering attitude in some way, but the amount of maneuvering and how long you can maintain that speed is limited

– HGV (WU-14 and DARPA’s HTV) are lifting body designs with (relatively) high L/D ratio, meaning they can maintain hypersonic speed in the atompshere for far longer than MARVs and do far more maneuvering, the latter making them almost impossible to intercept without another atmospheric hypersonic vehicle

– Its easy to tell if something is MARV or HGV by their trajectory, if the trajectory is flat or contain a lot of (relatively) high curvature sections then its likely an HGV. Trajectory of this test can be seen by US satellites, and if they concluded its an HGV, then there should be little doubt it is a HGV

Gary Church

Ziggy……learn some manners or shut up. He is hosting you and you are an ass for insulting him. Jeez.

ziggy1988

Im not insulting him, jyst pointing out his mistakes and

Gary Church

no conservative website is reputable. Why are you being an ass on this site when you can pollute your own AND peddle right wing propaganda? go away

ziggy1988

Conservative sites are very reputable – in contrast to the garbage you lefties peddle on your own websites. And Im not spreading any propaganda here, just stating the facts. The DF-21 has a speed of Mach 10. That is a fact.

Gary Church

You are an ass for insulting your hosts and claiming your website is “far more reputable.” That is a fact.

squidgod_the_unbannable_2.0

Can you guys double-check your formatting before posting? Even if you don’t see it, there are display issues in some browsers. Often this is caused by cutting/pasting text from other programs. You can avoid it by pasting the text in notepad first.

I checked. This is a newish problem for us. I use Notepad and we STILL get this crap. Someday soon my IT gurus will figure out what I’m doing wrong or fix what they missed… Regardless, thanks for pointing this out.

squidgod_the_unbannable_2.0

The rich text editor on my site (Sharepoint-based) screwed up the code so bad I had to start doing my layouts in Dreamweaver, copying the HTML and bypassing the RTE altogether. Notepad was always a bandaid for me–it’d mitigate the problem while copy/pasting, but couldn’t make up for a bad RTE.

I appreciate the effort.

gongdark

We can all thank Bill Clinton for this. Some is still feeding China.

Gary Church

I do thank him. He did a great job (except for nafta); Bush should go to prison for lying and starting that war. Inexcusable.

bridgebuilder78

Clinton certainly did a far better job than W., but that’s not really saying much, is it?

The repeal of Glass-Steagall was not a very smart move, at all.

PolicyWonk

In all fairness to Clinton, he did say in his signing statement that the Feds would have to be vigilant and plug any holes in the regulations at the first sign of trouble.
Those warnings started coming to the POTUS starting in mid-2001 for problems in the financial and real estate sectors. These were routinely ignored by the administration (and GOP managed houses of representatives) until the entire economic roof the USA (and our western allies with us) caved in.
The Congressional Budget Office report on the causes of the Great Recession placed ~90% of the blame on the GOP for the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression.

Zero

I wish people could actually spend the time to follow the timeline involved and not let bias get involved. On multiple occasions the Bush admin tried to reign in fanny and freddy and make them accountable and they were unable to do so.
Glass Steagall, and the fair housing act did more to setup the economy than pretty much anything else.

In my humble opinion we should be pouring money into the FEL laser program and make it viable. Getting those systems functioning and on board ships and having a solid fleet of SSGN’s would go a long way in balancing China’s goals on anti access capabilities.

Gary Church

“On multiple occasions the Bush admin tried to reign in fanny and freddy
and make them accountable and they were unable to do so.”

Total rewriting of history. The Bush admin never reigned in anything. So easy to say they “tried” -and such B.S.

Clinton therefore shares culpability. Other guilty parties include Sandy Weill and Jamie Dimon, both of whom headed Citigroup at the time and were the prime movers behind the successful lobbying effort to repeal Glass-Steagall. Plenty of blame to go around. Plenty.

Gary Church

Yes. You are right. Plenty of blame but no consequences; these rich CEO’s and executives can destroy several million peoples savings and send ripples around the world resulting in massive suffering and they are living large and never spent a day in jail. All completely legal. And I just got my military pension cut.

bridgebuilder78

Legalized corruption and institutionalized highway robbery.

America is a one-party state. I know I might offend some for saying that, but if smart folks set aside their emotions and think about it for a minute, their guts will tell them that this is absolutely true.

PolicyWonk

The Bush administration could’ve done a lot when they owned both houses of representatives, such as reigning in Fanny and Freddie, and utterly failed to do so. That is the record.
This is why the CBO report clobbered the GOP, and handed them 90% of the credit for causing the worst economic crisis since the great depression.

bridgebuilder78

No, it absolutely should have never been repealed in the first place. No excusing that.

PolicyWonk

I am inclined to agree. And the last financial crisis should’ve forced the breakup of these so-called “too big to fail” banks, and put the irresponsible/unethical management in the slammer with the common criminals.

We Can Only Blame “OURSELVES”! It Is Ironic, But Because OF AMERICA’s Greed. We Are FUNDING Almost All Of China’s Progress, whether It Is Their Infrastructure, Their Research & Developement or Their Military Industrial Complex! “WE ARE THE ENEMY WITHIN”! All Because Of GREED!

squidgod_the_unbannable_2.0

Man, Initial Caps and ALLCAPS? This guy means business.

bridgebuilder78

No, Mr. Jerry Simon Means BUSINESS.

bridgebuilder78

“We Are FUNDING Almost All Of China’s Progress”

But this doesn’t quite square with the fact that we owe them $2 trillion.

rappini pasta

Y’all can thank Bubba Klinton and Rand Corp for helping the Chicoms with missile tech.

PolicyWonk

However, according to the National Intelligence Estimates (NIE – the combined opinion of all 16 US intelligence agencies), the administration of George W Bush created policies that permitted the transfer of 10’s of thousands of dual-used technologies, the hard-won manufacturing techniques, 8+ million jobs, and a significant portion of the US strategic manufacturing base to Communist China.

The NIE defined the results of these ill-conceived policies a national security disaster. The NIE pointed out, that in less than 8 years, China acquired more military technologies than the USSR did in 60+ years of cold war.
Patrick Buchanan wrote many an editorial decrying the loss of jobs, and the veritable give-away of US technologies, the manufacturing base, the millions of jobs, and the tax base to an ever-increasingly belligerent China, who would radically increase their military spending and bullying of its neighbors.

Nothing Clinton ever did even remotely matches the incompetence of the Bush Administration.

You can thank George W Bush and his administration for selling out the national security of the United States, and all our Pacific allies, merely in return for the short term profits of his supporters.

Gary Church

Telling conservatives the truth is like pissing in the wind. Why do you waste your time?

PolicyWonk

Heh –

I suppose I keep thinking that a dose of FACTS will rattle their brains.

OTOH, to paraphrase Mark Twain: its easier to make of fool of someone than it is to convince someone they’ve been made a fool of.

rappini pasta

PW, thanks for that information I didn’t know that, but that still doesn’t justify Clinton piling on, buy it does mean neither the Rino Republicans or the Liberal Democrats can be trusted with our National Security and especially today. We need a major change in our government. Oh, and when you see Clinton tell him to put all the W’s back on the computers in the White House, thanks.

PolicyWonk

You’re welcome.
I thought the swiping of the W’s on the WH computers was pretty amusing.
Clinton did allow the transfer of some missile technologies because a lot of US firms wanted to use unreliable Chinese boosters to launch their satellites (and NASA didn’t have the capacity).
OTOH, why they didn’t turn to the EU/Arianne is beyond me. Somewhere along the line, our government should realize that a little less profit for US businesses doesn’t amount to much when it comes to selling out US national security.
Either way, that transfer under Clinton didn’t amount to even a decent fraction of what happened under GWB’s watch. At least, if the opinions of all 16 US National intelligences agencies carries any weight.
Cheers.

rappini pasta

PW, not to be nosy but are you in the Fed Government Military or Civilian? I’m trying to figure out where you how you get your info.

PolicyWonk

I currently do consulting work for a variety of organizations that sometimes do work for the DoD and federal government. Plus, I have many sources of information. I follow foreign policy, stay current in military affairs and national security issues, and remain a voracious reader. On a side note, I also have done a lot of volunteer work with disabled veterans to help them get and keep the benefits they earned the hard way.

As far as my information sources, there are so many. I avidly read international news because they lack the jaded view of US-based news organizations. I like to see *how* the US is viewed from the outside. Furthermore, if you read news from sources outside the US, and compare them to sources inside the US, you quickly get a feeling for who usually publishes/broadcasts news, versus fertilizer. There are also many US government sites that contain an astonishing amount of information – all paid for by your (and my) tax dollars.

There are of course, some things I simply prefer to keep private.

Cheers.

rappini pasta

Since I retired I have gotten more involved with foreign affairs and yes I check on the outside as well, I find it very interesting in comparison. The only concern I have is spending to much time on this computer. Anyway thanks for you info I appreciate it.
Blessings

ycplum

That is down right unAmerican. You need to listen to rage radio and political pundit TV shows or they will revoke your citizenship.
LOL

guess

BLURP: [i]”It’s the year 2800, the Sino-China Technocracy tests Humanity’s first FTL drive…[/i]

Peanut gallery: [i]Y’all can thank Bubba Klinton…

Limnoecologist

China’s just acting in its self interest as are all the nations of this earth. We ought to get with the program — we’re bumbling about with asinine domestic politics while our adversaries are moving full speed ahead to close and surpass the technological lead that we’ve relied upon for so long.

estuartj

I think this is a bit misleading in that in implies that the move of the USS Teddy Roosevelt from Norfolk to San Diego is a rebalance. There are currently 5 CVNs based in the pacific (2 near Seattle, 2 in San Diego and one in Japan), the USS George Washington will head to overhaul in Norfolk (where the TR just compelted her overhaul), the Roosevelt will replace her in the pacific with the Ronald Reagan moving to Japan. Force structure remains the same, 5 active CVNs in the Pacific and 4 in the Atlantic (with 1 in overhaul and the USS Gerald Ford do to join the fleet….someday.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/brianweeden Brian Weeden

Does anyone actually have any hard information on what was tested and what the technology was? So far all I’ve seen on this story from Congress and other sources is hyperbole about China. There are a lot different things getting lumped together in this. Hypersonics is a very broad term that can mean a lot of things (sort of like “nano”).

The US has been looking at hypersonics most significantly as a potential technology for Prompt Global Strike. But the last HTV test we conducted resulted in an abort 9 minutes into the planned 30-minute flight because “unexpectedly large sections of its skin peeled off”:

Is that what China is researching? Is the assertion that somehow China is ahead of where DARPA is with this technology? Is there any actual evidence to support that claim? Or just hot air?

vlhc vlhc

DARPA did not conclude the technology is “not useful”, they concluded they don’t have enough money to make trying a third time worthwhile, and is falling back to easier low L/D warhead designs – AHW

Yes, China is researching the high L/D HTV like glider, there is plenty of unclassified papers on this subject published in Chinese, China built the world’s largest hypersonic wind-tunnel (JF-12), declassified a little more than a year ago, and flight trajectory of this vehicle, probably seen by US early warning satellites, can easily tell if its a MARV or HGV. Whether or not McKeon saw the data or were talking about the data, that’s up to speculation

Is China ahead of DARPA? I think the general consensus, in the media at least, seem to be pretending both HTV flights were successful, but if you take McKeon’s words seriously, then yes.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/brianweeden Brian Weeden

I did not say the technology isn’t useful, I said it wasn’t useful for the application of strategic global strike. That’s directly from DARPA, and obvious to most who know about materials science and engineering.

I do not take McKeon at his word, or anyone else on this. It is ludicrous to think that China (or any country at this point) is able to develop this technology but the US can’t. That is an extraordinary claim and as such requires extraordinary evidence to support it.

Just because there are a lot of Chinese papers and publications on it does not mean a) it’s a big national priority and b) they are going to be successful with it. Applying the same analysis and technique to the US military would lead to the erroneous conclusion that they are doing a lot of things they’re actually not, or that many things they military wishes were possible (or real) are not.

vlhc vlhc

There’s no technology the US can’t develop, it does not mean its already finished development as of today.

You are right, papers and wind tunnels do not indicate capability, they just provides a basis for analysis. As far as we can tell by information we have, the Chinese spent the time and resources developing this technology and there was a successful flight test, DARPA also spent time and resources on this technology, but HTV tests were not successful. Until someone releases more detail, such as the exact observed trajectory of this vehicle, this is the only conclusion we can draw.

bridgebuilder78

“There’s no technology the US can’t develop.”

I wish we could develop the technology to balance the budget, errr, I meant to agree on a basic budget.

bridgebuilder78

Buck Mckeon is retiring this year, so he must be looking for a big fat paycheck with one of them defense firms.

Besides, why did you even take a politician seriously when he’s in front of a camera?

Gary Church

Are they going to cut his cost of living allowance?

bridgebuilder78

Ha, not a chance. Buck’s gonna keep all his bucks and then make some more lobbying for defense contractors.

ycplum

From the article at least, they did not say it wasn’t useful for strategic global strike, just that they could not get the funding for further research in that area. It seems tactical applications research was more appealing to Congress.

Ron S

Good to see the US paying parts from China for their F35 as their newest fighter jet… that’s why we need the NSA spying on US. We need to all keep buying everything at Walmart.

Cdelairre

The Chinese have stated as a policy that the world needs to de-Americanize. This should not be taken lightly. The question is through what channels are they willing to commit to reach this objective, and do we have counter-measures. In the current state of play it would be a mistake to think that military parity is the active front, or at least the only active front. They are coming at us economically, culturally, on the cyber front, and militarily. For political statements to made along these lines, they must either feel threatened, or feel they have a legitimate advantage along some front. We need to monitor this carefully, and take pragmatic steps to contain, and counter offensives. The recent “fly zone” protected space announced by the Chinese has to be seen as a rachet up of their intentions in the Pacific rim. I’m not beating the war drum, just when a party tells you of their intentions to do you harm, then takes measured steps to realize that goal, you cannot ignore it or leave them un-checked.

Gary Church

China is right. You think everyone on this planet can live in the burbs and drive a pickup truck? The world is changing and we have to change with it. China has no intentions of doing us harm. Why would they? Ridiculous sinophobic B.S.

bridgebuilder78

This arms ‘race’ is gonna be expensive, so let’s do a cost review to save some money. Cut off all aid to Israel for a start.

jj

Israel is the number one buyer of our used weapons

Bob

Certainly
you jest, right? Your approach would ensure the death of over 6 million peace
seeking humans. For example, Hamas fired more than 1,200 rockets at Israel in
11 days. Israel told the Arabs to stop shooting rockets and Israel would draw
back. Hamas responded with MORE rockets. Clearly Iran is using Hamas to provide
martyrs to inflame the Arab world … and you would recommend that we sacrifice
an entire nation to improve our budget … you would support the massacre of a
nation… where is your humanity … or …
are you Hamas?

JPWREL .

Apparently, the esteemed members of the U. S. Congress think
it is their right to have a veto over Chinese military developments or at least
be consulted first. China is NOT an adversary;
they are a competitor and our largest creditor.
It is perfectly possible to talk ourselves into a fruitless arms race
and another stupid war this time with the Chinese if the thoughtless jingoist’s
in Congress and the far right have their way.

Realityanvil

Interesting that no one has made the connection betwween this threat and the 2nd-stage rocket separation technology Bill Clinton sold the Chinese via LORAL Industries way back in the ’90s when the worst the Republicans could pin on the treasonous bastard was his getting a BJ and an anchovy-flavored cigar from his portly paramour, Ms. Lewinsky..

Gary Church

Bill is a man and not perfect, what are you but an insulting juvenile jackass who would rather babble about blow jobs instead of the president that lied to start a war and killed……millions? Go away.

ibsteve2u

The best quote in the article?

Sometimes it can seem as if one lives on several different planets at the same time while living here in Washington.

After all, it was the Republican/neoliberal alliance that decided that hurting “labor” (a.k.a. “the American people”) in order to attain a “friendly labor market” while enriching Corporate America’s owner/operators (i.e., their executives and major shareholders) justified transferring the technology and its means of mass manufacture that the PRC/PLA needed to upgrade their military and offensive capabilities.

That is why I find Hagel’s current focus on the slop in the Air Force’s nuclear command and control structure to be appropriate…for it is my judgement that both the wealthy who own the Republicans/neoliberals and their political pawns concluded that they could destroy both the tax base that supported our military and the industrial infrastructure that armed it/won World War II because….”We can always go nuke, and the Chinese know it.”

Which in turn assumes the Central Committee gives a bamboo chopstick about their people, which is false: E.g., look at their pollution levels. (Edit: Note that the PRC is already absorbing between 350,000 and 1.2 million casualties annually as a consequence of air pollution in their quest to attain competitive and industrial primacy – which in turn will ensure military supremacy.)

Planetar

Prove it! Nobody’s seen the damn thing do Mach 10. We have to take China’s word for it! The Dong Fengs historically have been moderately-capable systems. Suddenly, we are to believe China has evolved it to manage such a hypersonic speed? It’s like claiming Saturn V performance from a Redstone. C’mon! Prove it!!